PROBLEM DEFINITION: e-Learning creates new and emerging paradigms in RH education like self-directed learning, limitations of which can defocus the endpoint selection in clinical and experimental trials. Nowadays, the citation of the open-for-access (OFA) RH research papers, are gradually dominating upon the citation of fundamental not-open-for-access (NOFA) literature and solid innovative conclusions. The researchers, clinicians, and policymakers must confront the question of whether or not the OFA literature accelerates scientific advancement and knowledge translation of research into practice. SAMPLING: A cohort of OFA and NOFA articles published in the journal ‘Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care’, between March 2005 and June 2006. METHODS: The bibliometric impact of OFA and NOFA is compared through citation topology in a cohort of articles. Here we locate citation patterns through mapping the results of a longitudinal quasi-baseline biblio-metric (citatory-metric) study of 27 (33 percent) OFA scholarly e-articles and 55 (67percent) OFA papers in RH (a total of 82). Article characteristics are extracted; potentially confounding variables, including the number of authors, authors` lifetime publication count, submission track, country of corresponding author are adjusted for in logistic and linear multiple regression models. RESULTS: The average number of citations of OFA articles is slightly lower as compared to NOFA articles. With a logistic regression model, controlling over the submission track and potential confounders, the NOFA articles, as compared to OFA, remain likely to be more cited (odds ratio = 1.7 [1.2-2.2] ). In the crude citation analyses, the mean number of citations, as well as the proportion of the articles cited at least once, is higher in the NOFA group (RR- 95 percent CI).